Was Death By Metal a Seminal Recording?

I think that while Death doesnt get put up on a pedestal here (which is refreshing), they also don't seem to get any musical recognition. Seems that whenever someone mentions them it just turns into a whole AIDS accusation thread.

Death/Mantas deserves a place in the sun, but they shouldn't be the only ones.

I agree completely. For those wondering why I think it is ignored:

"One of the first to popularize (but not invent: Possessed, Massacra, Sepultura, Morbid Angel, Deathstrike, Hellhammer and Necrovore predate them) the death metal genre."

Death/Mantas - Formed 1983. Also the first of these bands to actually release a demo.

I detest 90's Death just as much as the rest of you guys, by the way.

All of these bands predate Death/Mantas in terms of making coherent contributions to the developing creative language of death metal. Chuck Schuldiner was a cultural archiver, not an inventor, and Death's albums and demos always reflected a pastiche of whatever Chuck was hearing at the time. That's why the early demos sound like Slayer and Venom, then move to simply ripping off Possessed, then, in 86/87, to a mixture of Possessed worship and dumbed down versions of ideas pioneered on Abominations of Desolation. Sure, death was around before Morbid Angel or Massacra, but these bands were the architects of the language and structure of the genre, while Death merely popularized what others innovated.